


That Secret That We Know

by Avendell, granger_danger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Co-workers, Deck The Halls With Dramione 2020, Draco Malfoy in Glasses, F/M, Fanart, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Inspired by Fanart, Light Angst, Mild Blood, Mild emotional hurt/comfort, Ministry of Magic Employee Draco Malfoy, Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, Mutual Pining, Pea Coat Kink, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rolled Sleeves Agenda, Romance, Sexual Content, Some Humor, Very Tender Idiots to Lovers, first snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:26:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avendell/pseuds/Avendell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/granger_danger/pseuds/granger_danger
Summary: It hasn't been an easy year, and Hermione Granger is having a hard time mustering a holiday mood. When she throws a Stragglers' Christmas Eve, she doesn't expect her work partner Draco Malfoy to be her only party guest.And he'sbroodingat her again.She never should have brought him to that blood drive.A Dramione holiday tale about the first snow, facing feelings, and finding hope at the end of a hard year, featuring gorgeous art by Avendell, a cottage in Wiltshire, and an unfairly beautiful forest green cashmere jumper.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 99
Kudos: 785
Collections: Deck The Halls with Dramione





	That Secret That We Know

**Author's Note:**

> Fanart by Avendell  
> \- Find her work on [Tumblr](https://avendell.tumblr.com/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/avendellart/)!
> 
> I was thrilled to be invited to Deck the Halls Advent - huge thanks to ladykenz347 for putting this on!! - and I have been squeeing SO HARD over getting paired with this absolutely gorgeous piece from Avendell!! 😍😍😍 Pretty sure my heart stopped the first time I saw it. 
> 
> One million thanks to my dear friends and alpha/beta team, Scully Murphy and Pacific Rimbaud, whose support, edits, insights, and cheerleading made this story so much better!
> 
> If you like to pair music with your fic, try Blood Bank by Bon Iver because: 1) it is technically a Christmas song and 2) it heavily inspired aspects of this fic and I listened to it approximately 150 times while writing and staring at THIS BEAUTIFUL ART, to the detriment of my Spotify Wrapped. 😆
> 
> Trigger/Content Note: There is no injury, violence, or gore in this story, but I did tag blood because there is a scene that takes place at a blood drive and some attention is paid to blood bags. If you are hemophobic, you may want to skip that stretch!

**  
** **TODAY - Christmas Eve  
**

Hermione was loading the second batch of biscuits into the oven when the doorbell finally chimed. Christmas Eve had dawned grim and gloomy, just like the six weeks before it, and the cityscape outside her rain-streaked windows was painted in shades of inhospitable grey. She shed her apron and took one final look around her place on her way to the door. 

Cushions had been fluffed and nuts set out in wee crystal dishes; a swag tied with red ribbon hung above the mantel, which displayed a framed photograph of Wendell and Monica Wilkins. Despite Hermione’s attempts at festive touches, the overall impression was absence, something approaching the slight neglect of a graduate student flat. She worked so much that she was seldom here, so it came as no surprise that her home looked as though it resented being pressed into a party mood and would have vastly preferred emptiness. Nothing for it now, though. Hermione plastered a smile on her face and flung open the door.

She should have been expecting Draco — theoretically, she _was_ expecting Draco — but she was still caught off guard by the overall effect of him haunting her doorway, rakishly windblown. A few rogue waves of his white-blond hair spilled out onto his forehead, flirting with the margins of his dark brows.

And he was still _brooding_ at her.

“Happy Christmas, Draco.” She popped up to give him their standard greeting kiss, and if it was slightly fraught today, they both had the good grace not to acknowledge it. His skin was cold beneath her lips; she fought the impulse to press her overly hot cheek against him but stepped back instead, tugging at her top. “Do come in.”

Draco stepped just far enough in to close the door behind him and began snapping off his gloves. Reaching past him to bolt it, Hermione found herself very much within his personal bubble.

Neither one of them moved, though Draco’s eyes glittered with a mischief she hadn’t seen in quite some time. “Happy Christmas, Granger.”

“Here, let me.” Before she could stop herself, she reached towards him and began slowly undoing each button of his fine pea coat. Blame it on the coat, she thought, and its damned buttery wool.

Letting herself get this close to him was always a mistake. As she slowly slipped each button open, letting her fingers linger over the buttonholes, his eyes never left hers. She felt herself sliding headlong into the exact kind of slippery liminal state she had been deferring for months now, if not years.

She had undone the last button, but a significant something — an invisible haze of _possibility —_ clouded the air between them. She didn’t dare breathe. Draco brushed a strand of wild hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

“Granger.” His eyes were soft, his voice tinged with unmistakable remorse.

Painfully familiar remorse.

Sweet Merlin, he was going to apologize _again._

“I’ll just run this to my room, then.” Hermione broke away, stepping behind him to pull the coat from his shoulders and nearly upsetting the decanter of brandy he had tucked into the crook of his elbow. “Oh gods, Draco, you brought _that?”_

He winked over his shoulder at her with a shrug. “Tradition, Granger.”

With a bit of awkward maneuvering, she finally freed him from the coat and scurried away to drape it over her bed. The coat fell at a somewhat cavalier angle across the length of her duvet, as though Draco himself had been raptured from it while lying beside her in nothing but his outerwear.

Hermione ducked into her en suite to splash cold water on her face before rejoining her guest in the front room.

Draco had a general way of sauntering into any space as though it were his natural domain, but she found him hovering between the couch and the kitchen, looking rather at sea.

“Alright, Malfoy?”

“Right as rain, Granger.” He flashed her a tight little smile. “Only I _was_ given to believe this was a party.”

“Ah, well.” Hermione grimaced at her empty flat. “It was meant to be. Not a _party_ precisely, but a _gathering,_ certainly. Only — well, Harry and Ginny were planning to stop by before they headed to the Burrow, only they Flooed last minute to say that they couldn’t manage it, because Albus is collicky…”

Hermione strode briskly to the kitchen and tied her apron back on.

“And Penny thought she might be able to duck over, but now that they have Poppy, Roger’s family is really quite insistent about holidays…” 

With great vigor, Hermione plunged a tablespoon into her remaining batter and began plopping rounded spoonfuls onto a Silpat. She could feel Draco’s eyes on her, but she rushed on, not meeting them.

“I’d assumed Neville was a sure thing, but it seems he has a new beau…”

She caught motion from the corner of her eye and looked up to see Draco pushing up the sleeves of his cashmere jumper, which was an unfairly beautiful deep forest green. She watched intently as he rolled the cuffs of the crisp white Oxford he wore beneath it. It was true that her flat was overly warm from hours of baking, but exposing his forearms was an unacceptable breach of treaty. Hermione swallowed and willed herself to look away.

“Anyway, it’s not as though I ever expected a crowd,” she rambled on. “It was really just meant to be a bit of a casual do for those of us without anywhere else to go.” The egg timer made a satisfying little ding, and she shuffled one tray of biscuits out of the oven and shoved the next batch in. With one hand on her hip, she finally met Draco’s eyes. “But most everyone else has … families of their own these days.”

He cocked his head and shot her a Look, rueful but amused. “Everyone but us?”

Hermione rolled her head back and groaned at the ceiling. “Yes.”

“Thank Salazar, frankly.” Draco ambled over to the couch and cast himself down upon it with blatant disregard to her carefully fluffed cushions. “I’d rather not bother with _people.”_

That earned him some gentle side eye. “Last I checked, I am still people.”

“Well, you hardly count, Granger.” Draco was fully reclined now, with his arms propped behind his head. “You’re easy enough to be around. Besides, second year in a row.”

Hermione stepped back, taking a shaky breath. While shuffling some mixing bowls into the sink, she mustered her game face, as though Draco had just not violated their unspoken agreement to… leave certain things unspoken. _“Last year_ hardly counts.”

Crooks padded out from the bedroom just then, making a circuitous, arthritic exploration of the front room with his tail aloft before leaping, with absolutely no ceremony, up onto Draco’s lap. Hermione clamped her mouth shut and turned her face away to hide her shock. Crookshanks did not deign to emerge when she had company, let alone form immediate alliances.

Draco seemed to have made himself right at home, so she put on some Muggle Christmas carols and set about prepping the Florentines. When she looked up at him again, he had produced his wire-framed reading glasses and was casting a lazy summoning spell at her magazine rack. He rifled through them before delving into the latest _Time Out London,_ absently stroking the cat with one languid hand. Crooks loosed an excessive purr and curled into a donut on Draco’s stomach.

She stared so long that he looked a question at her over the tops of his spectacles.

“Last year,” she huffed, channeling the twisting in her stomach into an assault on the batter more forceful than was strictly necessary.

“Safe to say this one will be better.” Draco returned to his reading, his voice even, nonchalant.

Hermione looked daggers at him. “Well, I should hope so.”

Draco simply scritched Crookshanks in the exactly correct spot behind his left ear and smirked into his magazine.

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**YESTERDAY - Last Day of Work Before Hols**

No number of floating candles could make the Ministry cafeteria fully festive. The enchanted greenery hovering above the tables in listless clumps seemed to sag. The event planning committee had changed all interdepartmental memos to green and red in the name of morale, but even that had only served to disrupt Hermione’s carefully color-coded sorting system.

As she held her soggy sandwich together with sheer force of will, Hermione doubted she could muster passable lunch conversation, nevermind holiday cheer.

It had been a long day in a month of long days, all encased within an interminable year.

“I’m sorry, Pen. I’m miserable company today.”

Penny nudged Hermione’s foot under the table, her lips quirking up slightly. “Malfoy’s _brooding_ at you again, love.”

This was not, in fact, new information. “So?” Hermione picked listlessly at a stray piece of cucumber. She focused on her plate, though she could feel Draco’s eyes burning into her from across the canteen.

“So, are you ever going to tell him how you feel?” Penny’s soft smile wilted Hermione’s resolve to remain detached.

“You know it’s not as simple as that.” Hermione shook her head softly, glancing up at her friend with a wavering smile.

Penny shot her a knowing look. “And why shouldn’t it be?”

Hermione raised her brows. “You know full well that it’s complicated.”

“Well, sure. But you’ve said yourself that he’s proven himself, earned your trust.” Penny bit her lip but couldn’t quite hold back her smile. “Surely at this point, you can be certain it’s mutual. ”

“Well, yes, clearly, but that doesn’t mean it’s _advisable._

Penny’s mouth parted slightly and she looked for all the world as though she were about to say something, but she pressed her lips together instead and leaned across the table. “Incoming,” she whispered.

Hermione looked up just in time to catch sight of Ron and Harry heading their way across the canteen. Ron’s face grew pale when he saw her, as though they hadn’t spent the nine months since their inevitable split co-existing in the Ministry’s common spaces with relative ease. He tapped Harry’s shoulder and steered him to another table; Harry rubbed at his hair and cast her an apologetic little smile over his shoulder.

“Crisis averted,” Penny said, and Hermione laughed.

“Oh come now, Ron and I are … basically fine.”

“Yes, well.” Penny made a comical face and yanked her head in Harry and Ron’s direction.

“Yes, _well.”_ Hermione’s smile was wry. “Obviously there’s still a bit of strain.”

“Are you _sure_ you’ll be alright on your own for the holiday?” Penny’s lips pursed in concern. “If we were just doing Christmas at mine I’d have you for the whole thing, but you know how the Davies are… I could try to Floo-call to look in on you, though—”

“Oh Pen, that’s awfully sweet of you, but I’ll be fine, truly. After the mess in Australia last year, I’ll just be glad to be at mine. I always felt a bit lost in the Weasley Christmas, truth be told, so it’s just as well. And you know I’m having a bit of a Stragglers’ Christmas Eve tomorrow.”

Penny grinned and waggled her brows. “Oh right, and will Mr. Malfoy be there?”

“It’s his first Christmas since his mum passed, you know.” Hermione said it with great sobriety, pointedly ignoring Penny’s prodding. “So I imagine he’s in about as much of a holiday mood as I am.” At the last moment, though, she couldn’t stop herself from breaking into a cheeky little half-smile. “But _yes,_ if you must know, _Mr. Malfoy_ has been invited. Though I doubt he’ll attend.”

Penny shook her head fondly. “My beautiful friend, you’re the brightest idiot I know. Five Galleons says he’s there.” 

Hermione paused, stilling the foolish feeling rising low in her belly. “Is he still brooding?”

Penny snickered under her breath. “See for yourself.”

Hermione cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, and sure enough, found herself falling directly into Draco’s unnervingly unguarded eyes. He was sat several tables back with the blokes from Magical Games and Sports, not eating at all, seemingly impermeable to Ernie McMillan nattering away at him. He didn’t flinch or look away upon being caught staring at her, but rather regarded her with a melancholic intensity. His cursedly attractive mouth was drawn up, pensive. Pouty.

Sod it all.

“Merlin. He’s going to try to apologize again, I just know it.”

Penny reached across the table and squeezed her hand, then let it go. “Surely he means well?”

“I’ve managed to go seven months since the last time he’s apologized, and I’d rather hoped we were finally past all of that. Just when I no longer see a shadow of that cruel teenager when I look at him, he scrapes it all back up again.”

The first three apologies had been rather nice, really. Welcome, and certainly warranted. Each one after that just seemed to drive a wedge further into a deep, old, largely unexamined wound in Hermione’s heart. Every time it healed, she began to dread that he would rip it open again with his guilt and good intentions.

A wad of mustard-smeared ham and tomato backslid out from Hermione’s sandwich and she set the whole affair down in defeat.

“I never should have brought him to that blood drive.”

* * *

Draco was better about not brooding at her whilst on the clock, so the afternoon passed in a companionable and productive-enough silence. The last days before hols were always quiet, spent tying up loose ends and completing paperwork with relative leisure. From time to time, Hermione glanced up at her work partner where he was stationed, his desk directly opposite hers as it had been since the Ministry had shunted them into the same office nearly eight years ago.

She’d grown used to the breathy little murmur he made whenever he finished a report, the way his fingers twisted idly around his quill when he wasn’t writing. Usually his small sounds were a comfort, but this afternoon she found the huff of his breath and the quiet tapping of his long fingers unduly distracting.

It had been bad enough when he’d been mooning at her with dark looks full of vulnerability for the better part of the week, but now it was somehow worse that he _wasn’t._

Not long before closing up for the night, she gathered all of her things and excused herself to bring some reports down to Long-Term Storage, which technically needed to be done but also protected her from intrusive thoughts of crawling across two desks to twist a strand of his wavy hair around her little finger.

She headed straight from filing to the Lobby. Most people had knocked off early for the day, so even though it was just past five, her heels made a clacking echo as she made her way out.

“Granger—”

Hermione jumped. Draco had left their office when she had, so it was jarring to find him here in the lobby. The clean, tailored lines of his black pea coat stood in stark contrast to the marble pillar he leaned elegantly against.

This man effortlessly drawled and sprawled his way through life looking as though he had been cut from a Ralph Lauren ad, and it was nothing short of infuriating how alluring he managed to make it.

“Oh, Malfoy.” She pressed her lips together in a little smile. “I didn’t realize you were still here. Holiday and all.”

“Yes, well—” He pushed off of the pillar and fell into step beside her. “I was hoping to catch you. Is your Christmas Eve bash still on tomorrow?”

Hermione smiled. “Of course. Though bash is a strong word — I can’t promise you a crowd.”

“Brilliant. I’d like to come, after all. If it’s not too late.”

“Oh no, of course not. That’d be lovely.” 

They walked out together, their silence familiar enough but operating under the same strain that had been there all week. They paused, facing each other, for an awkward moment in the place where they usually parted ways — Draco towards his Apparition point, and Hermione towards the Underground station.

For a moment, she thought he might reach out and touch her face.

For a moment, she wanted him to.

“Tomorrow then, Granger.”

He leaned down and kissed her cheek, a very quick and chaste peck, like he’d done one thousand times before. As her lips skimmed his jaw, she had to clamp down the mad desire to drag them over the available part of his neck.

Instead, she pulled back, sinking down onto her heels. That road led only to regret, though the increasing frequency of these urges was… dismaying at best. “Good night, Malfoy. Tomorrow!”

At the bottom of the Underground stairs, she turned back. The long shadow of him still lurked up at the entrance, watching her watch him, then watching her go.

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**TODAY — Christmas Eve**

“I’m a terrible guest,” Draco said without conviction from where he still lay sprawled on his back with Crooks on his belly. “Letting you toil alone.”

“It’s just as well.” Hermione chuckled. “I’m doing them the Muggle way.” He didn’t ask her why, and he was looking at her like perhaps he knew, but she felt compelled to say it out loud anyway. “My mum’s recipes.”

Draco looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. “My mum made the best Christmas pudding.”

Hermione arched a brow despite herself. “Your mum _cooked?”_

Draco snorted. “Christmas Eve was the only time I ever saw her down in the kitchens. But yes, with a wand, of course, and only on special occasions.” He removed his reading glasses and twiddled them between his fingers. “You know, she said it would snow on Christmas Eve this year.

Hermione looked out the window dubiously. A fierce and frigid rain was pounding down on the few black umbrellas in the street below.

“A doubtful prospect, I know.” He held out his free hand and Crooks butted his whole head against it in evident delight. Draco’s lips quirked up, wistful. “She always thought that it’d snow on Christmas, anyway, and it never did. Terribly wishful.” A cloud of sorrow fell softly over his features. He set his glasses down on the side table and ran a hand through his hair.

Hermione’s eyes were hot, and she blinked. “Oh Draco—”

Draco stood abruptly, displacing the cat and holding out a hand. “None of that now. Please.”

“But it’d be perfectly natural if you wanted to talk about it — talk about her —”

Draco wandered over to the kitchen and Crooks trailed him, insinuating himself between her ankles. “And it’d be _perfectly natural_ if you wanted to talk about wretched Weaselbee. Or your own parents. Or _last year.”_ Draco gave her a pointed look.  
  
Hermione bristled slightly. She could do without the frisson crackling between them, today of all days. But every time Draco brought it up, she resolved to tamp it firmly back down. She rolled her shoulders back, willing them to relax, and turned to him with a sigh.

“Fine, detente then.” She waved her flour-dusted hands at him. “A tragedy-free Christmas it is.”

The last batch of biscuits were in the oven, so Hermione set about casting a flurry of washing up spells. Draco began pacing the small kitchen, then stopped. 

“What do you say we go to Wiltshire for the night?”

Hermione wrinkled her brow. “Wiltshire?”

“"Yes. I purchased a cottage there, you know, in the Muggle village nearby. After the Manor was razed."

“A cottage?” Hermione failed to suppress a snort. “Surely by ‘cottage’ you don’t mean a 6-bedroom, £900,000 affair?”

Draco sniffed. “It has three bedrooms, if you must know, and don’t be gauche.”

Hermione capered in front of him, a gleeful little dance. “Oh, but I’m terribly middle-class, Draco. I just don’t know any better.”

Draco attempted to look unamused and failed, ploughing on nonetheless. “London’s a cold wet cesspool this winter, and I doubt you’ll quibble with me when I say no one else is coming to your party. If we’re going to commiserate in damp despair, let’s do it somewhere with better scenery.”

Hermione surveyed her listless flat again; it seemed to sag in relief at the prospect of being left to itself once more. It was mad, truly and utterly mad, to go to Wiltshire alone with Draco, to sleep in separate cold beds not far from an empty tract of land that was haunted by the ghost of a drawing room where Draco himself had watched her endure some of the worst moments of her life. And yet, it seemed that perhaps outside of the city, she would be able to breathe better. She chewed her lip, thinking.

The part of her that valued self-protection warred with the part of her that longed to run her fingers over the landscape of his jumper for the better part of an hour.

Ideally by a fireplace.

In a charming cottage in the countryside.

“Fine,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go to Wiltshire. But I do have one condition.”

“What’s that?” Draco asked.

Hermione traced her hand through the air imperiously; a waste of a wordless, wandless spell, truly, but she wasn’t above showmanship. The keys to her Astra leapt into the air from their china bowl beside the door. She rattled them as they landed in her hand and grinned triumphantly.

“We drive.”

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**LAST WEEK  
**

“Any plans this evening, Granger?” Malfoy leaned back in his leather chair, propping his legs up on his desk and crossing them at the ankle. He had a pile of reports balanced precariously in his lap.

Hermione lifted her coat from the back of her chair and shrugged into it. “Oh, not really, I’m just donating blood, then a night in with Crooks. Perhaps grab some curry on the way home, nothing exciting. You?”

“Would you fancy joining me for a drink? Or dinner, perhaps?”

“Well, that does sound lovely, but I’ve got the blood drive —”

“Yes, ah — what is it, exactly?”

“Oh!” Hermione clapped her hands, delighted. “Have you never been to one?”

Draco furrowed his brow and tilted his head.

“Well! You see, in Muggle medicine they often need to replenish blood lost in serious accidents or procedures. So they ask for healthy people to donate. They’re always short this time of year, and it is the giving season, you know, so it was always something of a tradition in my house. We’d all go together—” Hermione felt her voice begin to crack. She closed her eyes.

She heard Draco drop the reports on his desk and cross over to her, then felt him patting her shoulder, his touch feather light. When she opened her eyes, he was peering down, concern etched over his features.

“It’s fine,” Hermione said around a catch in her throat. Her eyes were burning, but she swallowed it down.

“You really would have made a terrible Slytherin, you know.” His voice was dry but his eyes were soft. He ran a long, slender thumb over her knuckles.

“Would you prefer me a wet mess?” Hermione sniffed.

Draco tapped his chin, as though considering. “Sometimes, perhaps.” He pulled her to him gently, tugging her up and supporting her back so she was almost on her toes; the relief of pressing her face into his neck was palpable. The clean, warm smell of him enveloped her: spicy notes from his aftershave, the fresh scent of his shirt, the gentle, salty musk of his skin. Overwhelmed by his kind presence, the portcullis of her heart opened unexpectedly and she felt wet tears rolling down her face as Draco rubbed at her waist. As her crying slowed, she found herself focused on his thumbs over the fabric of her work shirt, on the soft skin at the base of his neck against which her lips rested.

She pulled back from him, swiping at her eyes. “How mortifying, I’ve gone and cried all over your neck.”

“It’s been a hard year, Granger.” His thumbs still ghosted over her flanks, under her coat but over her button-down. “I should be thanking you. Who wouldn’t want a pretty girl crying against his neck?”

He was almost certainly joking, but she looked askance at him nonetheless. “What about you?”

He blinked, his voice carefully blank. “What about me?”

Hermione surrendered to petulance and crossed her arms. “Well, _my_ neck is still awfully dry, you know. And it’s not as though I’m the only one of us with… something to grieve.”

Draco smirked. “Ah, but you see, dear Granger, I _was_ in Slytherin.” With that, his face was closed again, impenetrable, and he turned away, pulling on his coat. “So are we going to this blood drive or not?”

“Do you really want to come?”

“On the condition that you let me take you for a pint after. Or perhaps” — he bumped his hip against hers playfully — “a bottle of wine.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and grinned. “Deal.”

* * *

A cheerful middle-aged nurse in cartoon cat scrubs ushered them over to a couple of chairs. “Back in a mo, loves.”

Draco looked more pallid than usual, his face drawn. Hermione turned to him and laid her hand on his arm. “You alright?”

Draco jarred slightly. “Eh, yes, of course, only…” he laid his own hand over hers ever so softly and leaned close to whisper. “It’s alright that I’m here, right? It won’t … do more harm than good?” His brow creased in concern.

“Oh Draco.” Hermione aimed for comforting, but her impatience bled through. “It’s totally fine. Wizards and Muggles _are_ the same species, you know that—”

Draco didn’t pull back or move his hand, but he stiffened beneath her touch. “Well yes, I do know that much—”

“I’m sorry, I only meant — it’s perfectly safe.”

“Well, if you two aren’t the sweetest.” The nurse returned, pushing a cart of supplies, and they sprung back from each other, disentangling their hands. Draco reclined in his chair, and the nurse, whose name tag said “STEPH,” began to swab iodine over his inner elbow.

“It’s his first time,” Hermione said, and her voice must have betrayed some stray worry left over from their tense moment, because Steph smiled kindly at her.

“We’ll be gentle with him, love.” She tied the rubber tourniquet around his arm. “Look at that, _lovely_ veins, he’s a natural.”

When they had both been needled, Steph turned away for a second to answer another donor’s question. Hermione’s eyes drifted over to Draco’s chair.

His face looked solemn, troubled. Hermione followed his eyes up to the bag that was filling with his blood.

Inside of its plastic sleeve, Draco’s blood was a rich dark crimson, the shade of a good pinot noir. His eyes shot to her own blood bag, his features pained, and her stomach plummeted as she realized all at once how utterly daft it had been to drag him here.

Steph, seemingly undisturbed by the fog of emotional tension, unhooked Draco then ducked over to unhook Hermione.

“Why, look at that,” the nurse said with a warm smile, following Hermione’s eyes to the blood bags. “They’re just the same, innit? Couldn’t tell them apart if you tried.”

Beside her, Draco froze. Hermione could see the muscle in his jaw working. She slid her foot up to the edge of his, letting the side of her sensible brown boot meet the flank of his dragon-hide wingtip.

Steph took a long look at Hermione’s bare ring finger, then flashed her a cheeky smile before rounding on Draco.

“Don’t wait too long to ask her, love.” The cheerful nurse patted Draco’s shoulder. “Pretty girls never dally long.”

“We’re not—” Hermione called after her, but she had already bustled away.

Draco just stood and stared at Hermione. His face wasn’t closed anymore, but it was pained, and painfully soulful. It was bad when he shut her out and worse when he just walked around with his feelings all over his face. It would be slightly uncomfortable coming from anyone, but from Draco, who had more walls than a labyrinth, it was deeply disconcerting.

They put on their coats in silence, and Hermione avoided Draco’s eyes. The last time he’d looked at her this way had been on the most recent anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. He’d been uncharacteristically subdued after, casting her fraught and longing stares for more than two weeks before finally erupting into a rather humiliating expression of remorse and regret.

Hermione snorted softly to herself. What had been so surprising, when he’d looked at her blood? Had he been expecting mud?

It was clear from one look at him that he was torn up, though, so Hermione just smiled weakly and gave the sleeve of his coat a little tug. “Where to for drinks, then?”

Draco shook his head, looking a bit absent from himself. “Ah, sorry, Hermione, but I’m feeling a bit knackered after all of that. Raincheck?”

“Of course,” she murmured as he ducked down to kiss her goodbye.

And then he disappeared into the darkness, leaving her strangely bereft.

—❅❆❅—

**LATER TODAY — Christmas Eve  
**

The rain was ghastly all the way to Wiltshire. Upon arrival, Hermione set about starting a fire in the hearth while Draco unloaded their bags. She watched him levitate her suitcase to the bedroom across the hall from his and looked down at her kindling.

Utterly mad.

The stone cottage itself was at least two hundred years old, but the interior was full of pine beams and white walls, good light if the world ever again dried up. For a place largely unlived in and owned by the progeny of Lucius Malfoy, it was downright cozy. And honestly, it seemed much more welcoming than Hermione’s own flat. If her place looked as though it preferred to be left alone, the cottage cried out to be lived in.

By the time they’d gotten settled and had a quick tea, it was properly dark. When they’d stopped for petrol not far off, Hermione had picked up a local paper, and she laid it out on the broad maple table and set to perusing the Local Events section.

That was how they ended up tromping through the mud towards the village for the local Christmas festival, such as it was.

The car ride up had absorbed whatever strain had remained between them, and their silences had returned to companionable. The look on Draco’s face had softened into something less regretful, though it still terrified her.

A clump of buildings bedecked in white lights appeared in the distance, and Draco and Hermione fell into stride along a narrow lane under their enchanted black umbrella.

“You must miss them,” Draco said after a long time.

Hermione laid down her guard and blew out a breath. “I do.”

His gloved hand found hers, and she did not pull it back.

The village glowed ahead of them, far enough away to still look like something from a storybook.

“You must miss her,” Hermione said.

Draco turned his head to catch her eyes. “I do.”

She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

All at once Draco stopped, pulling her to a halt beside him. “Hermione, I…”

“Draco.” Hermione looked up at him with utmost solemnity. “You have to stop telling me you’re sorry.”

Draco looked like he was going to speak, but his lower lip just bobbed slightly before he retrieved it and closed his mouth.

“You’ve said it enough,” she said gently, as though she were teaching a child. “Just keep showing me.” She swallowed. “Alright?”

Draco nodded, his eyes glistening under the sliver of waning moon. “Alright.”

They kept walking.

He kept her hand. 

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**LAST YEAR  
**

She could have taken her pre-arranged International Portkey back from Sydney — with transfers in Jakarta and Prague — but she didn’t want to stay in Australia a moment longer than necessary, so she paid through the nose for a last-minute Muggle red-eye flight.

It wasn’t logical, to have been expecting a Christmas miracle, but on some level she must have been; why else would she be so disappointed now? Unable to sleep, she wrote fever-dream questions into the margins of her trashy magazine. _How can I ever forgive myself? How do you grieve the living?_

When she stumbled off the plane in Heathrow, dawn was just breaking, Christmas morning. She surveyed her sallow complexion in the tinny airport bathroom mirror; her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, her cheeks tear-streaked, and the bags beneath her eyes were dark. Back out on the concourse she noticed children staring at her with alarm, strangers giving her a wide berth.

She could hail a cab back to the flat she shared with Ron, climb in bed beside him. But he wasn’t expecting her until tomorrow, and she didn’t want to ruin Christmas. Anyway, with how things had been between them lately, this might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and if their relationship were going to end, she wanted it to end in a moment when she could muster some measure of dignity. 

If she were going to _feel_ alone, she might as well actually _be_ alone. It was less depressing that way. 

Without examining her choices too thoroughly, she Apparated to Whitehall and headed towards the Ministry entrance.

Work was the always best way not to feel.

Hermione headed into her dark office. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she registered a lump moving and extended her wand with a yelp. “ _Lumos!”_ The lump resolved into a handsome, if slightly bedraggled, man. “Morgana, Malfoy! You’ve given me a fright.”

Draco was slumped over his desk with his head in his hands. He grimaced at her. “Granger? What are you doing here?”

Her tongue was not ready to make words, so she just shrugged at him and watched his dawning horror as her own face fell.

When he spoke, it was very softly. “It didn’t work, did it?”

She sat on the edge of his desk and shook her head. “No,” she said. “It didn’t.” As she looked him over, she could see he had his own dark circles, his own grey pallor.

“Your mum?” she asked, her voice quavering.

Draco pressed his lips together. “It isn’t looking good.”

She let her dangling legs kick against his desk drawers. Draco cradled his chin in his hands and smiled up at her sadly.

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“That’s easy, Granger.” Draco lifted both of her ankles with one hand and fumbled in the drawer under her feet. He came out with a ridiculous cut-crystal decanter of brandy. “Now” — he plopped it down on the desk beside her and summoned two glasses from wherever he’d had them squirreled away — “we drink.”

* * *

Time wavered, stretched and swayed. They salvaged some crisps and some packets of nuts from their various snack hoards. They played parlour games. They talked about nothing and about everything. 

They got very, very drunk.

Hermione was sitting on Draco’s desk again, and Draco stood before her, far too close for comfort. Close enough to kiss. Her legs had fallen slightly open, framing his hips in his trim tailored trousers that hugged his bum, and she couldn’t be certain how exactly they had gotten so close to one another except that she was certain it was a problem of her own making. This was dangerous, he was dangerous.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, swatting at him.

“Like what?” he asked, all while having the audacity to look at her like that.

“Like _that.”_ She pointed her finger right into his face and then booped his nose. “Like you’re in lo—”

He was looking at her even more like that than ever, his eyes all starry and searching. “What if—”

“No.” She pushed the heel of her hand into his chest, gently. He stepped back and she carefully lowered herself off the desk and began the slow process of strapping her shoes back on without falling over. She looked at him sadly over her shoulder. “Not like this.”

“Right.” He followed her to the door, leaned against the frame. “Are you sure — you’ll Splinch yourself —”

Hermione blew out a world weary breath and grabbed the handle of her rolling suitcase. “Don’t worry ‘bout me. I’ll take a cab.”

Draco nodded and stepped in to kiss her cheek. She held out her hand, and his face deflated.

“It’s just…” She closed her eyes and turned away. “I don’t trust myself to. Not right now.”

“Okay.” Draco collapsed into his office chair and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Happy Christmas, Granger.”

Hermione prodded at the corner of her eye and cursed her weaknesses. “Happy Christmas. See you Monday.”

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**TONIGHT — Christmas Eve**

The tiny town was alive with lights, carolers, vendors selling cups of oversweet hot cocoa. They made it into the pub before it closed early for the holiday, and each of them had one powerful eggnog.

“Marry her!” an utterly pissed bloke called after them as they all tumbled out of the closing pub and back into the night.

“Why do we always seem to bring that out in people?” Hermione grumbled.

“Ah, come now, Granger.” Draco took her hand again. “Give the people what they want.” He bowed to kiss her knuckles as the bloke and his friends roared approval.

Hermione just rolled her eyes and pulled him across the road.

“Let’s go back through the park,” she said, and Draco obliged.

Here there were sparse deciduous trees, unlit but adorned with baubles and stars. The rain had finally stopped, and soft moonlight dusted everything around them.

Hermione heard something, which is to say that suddenly Hermione heard _nothing._ She pulled Draco to a stop facing her, holding a finger up over her lips, then letting her hands fall against his shoulders.

Something cold hit her cheek, then her brow. Hermione tilted her head back.

Snowflakes were drifting down softly all around them. She looked back at Draco with a shocked smile.

Draco canted his face up. His eyes closed briefly, suffused with the peace of a sleeping child. Then he opened them, gazing up at the falling snow, his face lit from within by solemn, boyish wonder.

Under her hands, the broad planes of his chest rose and fell with his breath. How warm his skin would be to her touch, if only there weren’t so many uncrossable borders between his collarbone and her fingers. Barriers of poplin and cashmere, Melton wool and suede. Bulwarks of murky insecurities like _lose the friendship_ and _unprofessional,_ _conflict of interest_ and _too complicated_ and _you’ll only get hurt_.

The sturdy shelf in her heart that held all of these carefully bottled Reasons Not To, despite having had its wobbly moments, had remained largely stable through the years. The moment she saw his upturned face, though, his grey eyes softening as the hush of the first snowfall crept over them, the shelf began to list, to give way.

Steadying herself, she leaned forward, just slightly, into him. Fat flakes stuck to his eyelashes, and he pulled his arms closer around her waist without ever taking his eyes off the sky. The drumbeat of his heart, muted through his coat, picked up pace beneath her gloved hand.

She grasped the lapels of his upturned pea coat collar with both hands. “Draco. Look at me.”

He dropped his chin down and stared straight into her, unyielding, and the effects of his unbridled awe trained directly on her was simply too much to bear.

“It’s snowing,” he said, his voice hushed and amazed, like it was the best secret he knew.

“It is,” she said, like she knew secrets too.

The shelf buckled then, broke its brackets and plummeted. Bottles smashed and vials shattered. Fear retreated from its role as compelling rationale, and the past faded into the far distance.

Hermione yanked his collar closer and rose up to kiss him.

His nose was cold but his mouth was warm, and he melted into her touch like he had been waiting his whole life to kiss her. Clumsy in her gloves, she still traced a thumb over his perfect jaw, stretched her fingers up into his hair. He grasped her close to him, clasping his broad hands over her waist, her back, as he poured himself into her. And when she was woozy from the kiss, wobbling at the knees, she pulled back just enough to bury her face in his warm, wonderful, vaguely spice-scented neck and finally — _finally_ — graze it with her teeth.

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**—** ❅❆❅ **—**

**EPILOGUE - Christmas Morning  
**

The winter sun stretched through the windows early, illuminating vestiges of the night before.

_They crashed into the cottage, clawing at each other’s coats._

First, almost in the doorway, his coat. Her coat, his gloves, her gloves. Their shoes in a haphazard cluster. Her scarf, draped demurely over a wicker chair.

_He pressed her against the kitchen counter, hands traveling over her curves, cold fingers raking against the warm skin of her lower back._

On the kitchen floor, an unfairly beautiful forest green cashmere sweater.

_She straddled his lap on the overstuffed couch. He drew her top up over her head, nibbled his way from her ear to her clavicle as she labored, slowly, teasingly, over his shirt buttons._

On the rug in front of the fireplace, a rumpled white Oxford. On the arm of the couch, a burgundy satin top.

 _She pulled him up, still kissing him. Pulled him to the stairs, still kissing him. Sashayed up the stairs just ahead of him, waggling her bum at him impishly until he grabbed her by the hips. She grinned at him over her shoulder, pulled herself free, walked a step ahead. She reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, dropping it behind her. She took another step without ever turning around. He laughed, low in his throat, and grabbed her by the hips again, kissing up her bare back. He turned her to face him, slowly, carefully, his breath hitching as he_ looked _at her,_ _and guided her hips down onto a stair before pressing his forehead against her breastbone with a groan, before palming her breast with reverence._

On the stairs, an unlined red lace balconette bra.

_She walked him back against the wall at the top of the stairs. He pressed his thigh between her knees. She drew a shaky breath as she ran her hand over the placket of his trousers. “Fuck,” she breathed into his ear as he pulled her against his thigh._

In the hall, two pairs of trousers, men’s brushed twill, custom-tailored, and women’s black cigarette leg.

_She fell back on the bed and he knelt before her, a supplicant. He kissed his way up the soft expanse of her inner thigh, up up up. She curled her fingers through his hair, cried out his name._

On the floor of the master bedroom, a pair of lacy red cheeky knickers, a pair of trim black boxer briefs, and four scattered, wayward socks. 

Last of all, the early rays of dawn fell over the hills and valleys of the white coverlet.

Under the linen, Hermione yawned and turned to face Draco. Her legs were tangled in his, her belly against his belly, the length of him grazing her hip. Her breasts against his chest, her arm slung across his back.

He kissed her, an unrushed, unwashed morning kiss, and her heart sang praises.

“Christmas morning,” she said, nose to nose.

His eyes were bright, playful, and it made her eyes wet — just a little — to see him this happy again. He cocked his head to one side. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” They were both whispering now, but all she could hear was birdsong.

Draco rolled onto his back, contemplating the ceiling. “Footsteps on the stairs.” Hermione spooned around him, resting her cheek on his chest. He tilted his head down to look at her and swallowed. “Small ones.”

“Oh.” Hermione propped her head up and became engrossed in a handful of bed sheet she had scrunched in her hands. She took a breath. “Small ones?”

He caught her hand and pressed it between both of his. “The tiniest.”

She dropped back on the pillow and closed her eyes, letting herself see it. Her practical grey couch, pressed into service in front of the cottage fireplace. A tree, bedecked with handmade ornaments, finger-painted Santas and popcorn strings, its fresh fir scent wafting to the sharp-ish, very straight noses of two small children, children who should have still been sleeping. As they crept down the creaking staircase of the old cottage, she let herself linger on their imagined features. Riots of tangled, blond hair. His defined chin. Her own warm brown eyes.

A lifetime of unrushed morning kisses.

Hermione opened her eyes to find him _brooding_ at her again, but this time there was a happiness at the center of it. She rolled onto her side and clambered over him. 

“You know,” she whispered in his ear, “I think I hear it too.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Please give Avendell all the love for her incredible art! Again, here are her socials:  
> [Tumblr](https://avendell.tumblr.com/)  
> [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/avendellart/)
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://grangerdangerfics.tumblr.com) too!


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